On-Board Camera: Newport Bermuda Race Video

Team Tiburon have posted video footage online showing some of the action as they made the 635-mile journey from Newport to Bermuda. The boat was chartered by Bermuda businessman Mark E. Watson III, with Bermuda residents Scott King, Ben Nicholls and Peter Bell aboard, along with midshipmen from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

Mr King said that after starting under a spinnaker, once the boat cleared the Narragansett Bay entrance buoys the crew set a double-headsail rig with a topsail over a jib. They then took in and shook out reefs in the mainsail as the conditions warranted, with one or two sailors always working the mainsheet.

Team Tiburon sailed Wizard a 74-foot sloop designed by Reichel/Pugh and chartered by Mark E. Watson III, the CEO of Argo Group. They covered 385 miles in her first 24 hours in the race, averaging almost 17 knots. “She felt slow when the speed dropped to 11,” Mr King said. “I’ve been in boats where 11 knots was not even part of the plan.”

Mr King said the water was always rough, with some waves 8 feet or higher and water constantly on deck, pushing sailors around. The Gulf Stream crossing was not as rough as he expected, he said, but it was spectacularly beautiful.

“Just before we entered the Stream we saw a long streak of phosphorescence in the water, as though a full moon was out and shining right down on it.” The phosphorescence disappeared when the boat charged into the main body of the Gulf Stream, but reappeared. “Dolphins were torpedoing through all this, right in front of us,” Mr King said.

As they neared Bermuda on Sunday morning [June 17], Team Tiburon sailed into a series of rain-squalls with stronger winds that pushed the boat to over 20 knots as she crossed the finish line off St. David’s Head.

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